It is impossible to watch Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant at their best and not think that surely, together, they can lead a team to an NBA title.
For as bad as they were collectively in a shocking Game 2 loss of their first round series (they combined to miss 40 shots), they were at their apex in closing out the Dallas Mavericks in Game 5.
Westbrook, pulling up and nailing from wherever he pleased, creating open looks. Durant, drilling from three and mid-range, attacking the basket. Both getting to the free-throw line. Together they provided 69 points on better than 50 per cent shooting.
And so that horrendous, earlier display is forgotten, and it is remembered Durant and Westbrook are two among a small handful of the very best players of basketball.
Now they get to test themselves against one of the very best teams.
• Read more: Kevin Jeffers – The Oklahoma City Thunder are fighting mad
• Also see: 2016 NBA play-offs – Previews, predictions and what we learnt day-by-day
This is the true moment the Thunder have been building themselves back up to since they went to the 2012 Finals, suffering one disappointment after another as they wandered for four years through a wilderness of bad timing and worse injuries.
Oklahoma City will face the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the play-offs, and if they are as good as they think they are they will be able to pit their strength – that is, Durant and Westbrook pushing them higher through individual, irrepressible force of will – ably against the Spurs’ en vogue ball-movement beauty.
"Look, we're not the San Antonio Spurs," Durant told ESPN in January. "We're not going to make 30 passes in a possession. We're not that.
“Of course, people want us to be that. That’s great basketball, don’t get me wrong. But we’re not that.
“We’ve got guys that can score. We’ve got two guys on this team that can get a bucket.”
Durant is right about that, of course. The Thunder, who were 18th in assist ratio (top three: Warriors-Hawks-Spurs) and 21st in assist percentage, are not about to join the Spurs-Warriors tiki-taka revolution. They are, as they always have, going to work top-down through their two superstars and see where that takes them.
Will it go any differently for them this time, though? It had better. For the very future of the Oklahoma City franchise, for this Durant-Westbrook partnership, it must.
As the other side of the western conference bracket has been waylaid by injuries, with a path to the NBA Finals, and maybe even a title, a lot clearer beyond this next round, the Spurs just might represent the last stand for this iteration of the Thunder.
Durant is a free agent in the summer. Everywhere from his hometown Washington Wizards to up-and-coming Boston to – shudder the thought – Golden State has been mentioned as a possible destination for the 2014 MVP.
He and Westbrook are at peak physical health. They have as much surrounding talent as they have ever had, or frankly ever seemed to want. Their style is defined, and for the most part they are playing the game they want to at the moment.
All they have to do is beat the Spurs. Overcome the evolution in the game, embodied by San Antonio, against which they stand asunder.
If they do not, it might be the end of this at-times wondrous, at-times infuriating Durant-Westbrook project in Oklahoma City. It is, it could be, at last now or never for this Thunder team.
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